Ten Things I Wish I Could Hate About You
by fowl68
Summary: Naruto sees ghosts sometimes. Or rather, one ghost in particular. SasuNaru ShikaTema GaaLee


**Disclaimer:** Don't own

**Author's Note:** Watched 10 Things I Hate About You for what seems like the umpteenth time and I still love that movie. I decided to do a fic with the poem that Kat writes at the end of the movie.

-~-~-~-~

_If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I. ~Michel de Montaigne_

-~-~-~

_I hate the way you talk to me_

It wasn't degrading, not really. Shikamaru, despite his faults, was somewhat of a gentleman and wouldn't degrade a woman like that. It was more that he could take the gentlemanly thing too far and tell her that she shouldn't be doing things.

Temari had never responded well to people telling her things with the words 'shouldn't' in it. When her father had told her she shouldn't go near her youngest brother, she'd started sneaking out of bed after midnight to creep down the hall and poke her head around Gaara's door, smiling at him and joining him to just sit with him on the bed.

But when some of the other girls would sometimes complain about their significant others not treating them like a lady enough (not all the time, just every once in a while would be nice) Temari'll hide a smile as she takes a sip of her iced tea.

_  
An__d the way you cut your hair._

His hair will be looser after he comes home and he almost always gets home first, so when he cooks a simple dinner of chicken and rice, strands of dark chestnut hair will fall into his eyes (and occasionally the food) and it just _bothers_ her. Not for any particular reason. It just does.

Temari doesn't mind so much when he's asleep beside her, warm breath on her shoulder. She minds a little when that thick hair tickles at her throat when he shifts positions sometimes and stirs her to drowsy wakefulness. But then, his hair always smells vaguely of vanilla and cinnamon

_  
I hate the way you drive my car_

Shikamaru's a smart man. No one could possibly deny this. Except Temari, who swore he had his lapses in genius. But then, no one else had ever seen him try to drive. He'd peered inside the hood curiously, and looked through the car, but, according to him, there was an obscene amount of unnecessary buttons.

But he'd sat through the driving lessons and gotten the license and when Temari asked him why, he just shrugged and said, "Just in case."

Because there's been a few times before when he couldn't quite save her because he was too weak from blood or chakra loss to carry her and to be able to drive might save her life faster.

_  
I hate it when you stare._

The staring was never impolite, and he only glanced teasingly at places she would slap any other man for. But sometimes, he did it just because he knew it would irritate her.

Sometimes (very very rarely) she felt that tingle that said he was staring when she was asleep. It meant he'd been called on a mission and he'd brush a kiss on her (usually) bare shoulder before slipping out of bed as silent as the shadows he commanded.__

I hate your big dumb combat boots

It was never difficult to hear Rock Lee coming. His steps were powerful and loud and his personality personified; they were only made worse by the weights he insisted on wearing underneath the leg warmers. Sometimes Gaara started to wonder how he'd ever become a shinobi, but then he'll look at the grinning face that had sharpened with lines of determination and he doesn't need to wonder.

_  
A__nd the way you read my mind._

It's been years since Shukaku's been gone, but he still gets the occasional sleepless night. Gaara asked Naruto once if that was normal, and the blonde had shrugged and said, "It might be different for everybody. It happens to me sometimes."  
And that was the answer he accepted. But that didn't mean that Gaara enjoyed being more tired the next morning. He wouldn't be exhausted; no, he'd spent too many years without sleep for that. But his concentration would wander in the meetings even more than usual and he sometimes would space out when someone would speak to him.

It was currently one of his sleepless nights and he was sitting at the window and watching his village sleep. A familiar presence came to sit just beside him on whatever was left of the windowsill and a mug was gently pushed into his hands.

"Go back to bed. You need your sleep." Gaara told Lee after thanking him. The Konoha shinobi had a mission tomorrow.

"Probably." Lee rested his chin on Gaara's shoulder. "But you need the company."

Gaara couldn't quite bring himself to protest against that.

_  
I hate you so much it makes me sick,  
it even makes me rhyme._

I hate the way _you're always right,_

Naruto glared blearily at Sasuke, who simply said, "I told you you'd get sick if you stayed out in the rain."

The blonde wanted to complain, but when Sasuke pushed a tray with a bowl of ramen and unspoiled milk carefully across the bed, he could only smile.

_  
I hate it when you lie._

"'m fine, seriously." Naruto insisted when Sasuke suggested that they stop and rest. Sasuke could never believe Naruto when he said that because he'd heard him say it coughing up a quart of blood.

But right now, on the way home from a mission that went south, he really had no choice but to believe him. Sasuke was no healer and their packs with the bandages and disinfectant had been lost in the fighting.

Naruto had an arm slung over Sasuke's shoulders, a bad ankle keeping him from putting his full weight on it. They'd walked like this for what seemed like half of eternity when the blonde's weight was heavier against him and Sasuke nearly dropped him. The tan skin was nearly as pale as his own and the sapphire eyes he knew so well were closed.

Sasuke maneuvered Naruto into a fireman's carry and only had one thought in mind: Let me make it to Konoha in time.

_  
I hate it when you make me laugh,_

Sasuke's muttered comment as he slid into the seat beside Naruto had the blonde choking on his soda. When Sasuke looked at him with an arched eyebrow, an expression Naruto was accustomed to, but just then, it seemed too funny for words and Naruto felt the soda spurting from his nose.

Swallowing what he could of the beverage, he looked back up to his best friend, face sopping and grin stretched wide on his face.

"Do I want to know?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto's nose wrinkled and he groaned. "Dammit! I can smell the soda! It burns!"

_  
E__ven worse when you make me cry.  
_

"You fucking idiot!" The words were too loud in the otherwise quiet hospital room. Sasuke would have protested if he knew it wasn't true. As it was, he stayed quiet. "You wanna tell me what you were thinking?"

Sasuke could only watch from the bed, injured as he was, as Naruto's anger exploded, the blonde pacing back and forth, running a frustrated hand through mussed hair. Sasuke knew it had been a stupid move to take the hit like that, but some of Naruto's protective, headstrong personality must have rubbed off on him.

Finally, when Naruto had finished ranting, he collapsed in the bed beside Sasuke and the brunette pretended not to see the shiny eyes and slightly blotched face.

_  
I hate it when __you're not around,_

Naruto sees ghosts sometimes. Or rather, one ghost in particular. And he supposed it's not really a ghost if Sasuke's not dead, but he really doesn't have a word for it. And he hears that familiar smooth voice in his head sometimes, in the quiet of his apartment or when he's training until twilight had long passed and the night's shadows whispered over the land.

And he keeps his ears open to any news. He hears the whispers in the streets and the angry proclamations at bars of a shadow slipping in and out of villages, sometimes leaving blood and bodies spilled and washed into gutters and other times of an odd passerby making fire dance for his bread.

And Naruto wants to remind Sasuke that he doesn't have to do all that because he has a home _here_, in Konoha. But then he remembers the villagers' cruelty and he knows he can't ask Sasuke to come home because they'll treat him like that and he doesn't want to see it.

But that doesn't mean that he doesn't miss him.

_  
A__nd the fact that you didn't call._

Sasuke's been agitated for the past two months. Naruto was on a mission, that much he was sure of, but he had no idea what kind of mission it was or even how long it was. They almost always let each other know these things, whether by note, through a friend or by a midnight visit. Missions like this were common, sure, so he waited a week, then slowly that week turned to two weeks. A whole month, Sasuke held his concern on a tight leash until finally he went to Tsunade.

"What's the mission?" He'd asked her.

She couldn't tell him a thing.

It's been three months and there's a knock on his door that seems too loud in the quiet. He opens the door, widening it when he sees Naruto standing there, tired and apparently already went to the hospital because of the clean bandages on his arms and one on his forehead.

A tired grin and a feeble attempt to pull a smile from the brunette. "Spare some bread for a poor beggar?"

Sasuke felt the agitation that had been gnawing at his insides for the past three months disappear at the sight of the familiar and relatively unharmed face. "Get inside, dobe."

The tiredness faded a little from Naruto's smile as, on his way in, he hugged Sasuke tight. "Missed you too teme."

_  
But mostly I hate the way I __don't hate you,  
not even close  
not even a little bit,  
not even at all._


End file.
